News Report November 15, 2005

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News Report September 22, 2006

'Octopus' Spotted In Carlisle Bay

The Nation is today reporting that Paul Allen's yacht, Octopus, was spotted yesterday in Carlisle Bay in Bridgetown. Too bad he could not moor this 416-foot behemoth up alongside a berth at the nearby Pierhead Marina. Oops, that's still on the drawing boards. He could have tied up at the nearby Bridgetown Port but wary owners and captains of these precious babies usually steer clear of commercial ports and harbors. A single ding could mean a million dollar paint job. Just three days ago this blog lamented the fact that Barbados is woefully behind the market trends in yachting tourism and this sighting underlines that concern.

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Six Men's Marina Project Outline

Six Men's Marina & Villas
Retreat, St. Peter (13 acres)
Marina -
Villas -
Developers - Port St. Charles
Date - Unknown
Price Tag - Unknown
Status - Submitted for Town Planning approval in 2003
In consultation with Government

Update December 2009
Port Ferdinand
Retreat, St. Peter (15 acres)
Marina - 120 slips
Condos - 96
Developers - Bjorn Bjerkham and Philip Tempro (JADA), Gary Morse (The Villages), Sir Kyffin Simpson, David Simpson
Date - 2014
Price Tag - $750M
Status - Under Construction

Is Barbados Missing The Boat In Yachting

A recent Business Week podcast highlighted the rise and rapid expansion of a new phenomenon in yachting - the mega-yacht and how it has caught marina developers off guard. Many marinas in the Caribbean and elsewhere are now rushing to satisfy this market. Next door in St. Lucia Rodney Bay is upgrading to provide berthing for 50 mega-yachts at one time, and also coming on stream is the redevelopment of the main marina on St. Thomas to handle mega-yachts specifically, as well as several marina projects in the Dominican Republic with mega-yacht components including the massive AtlanticA project. Of course, focusing on mega-yachts is not to overlook the virtual explosion in yachting generally and in tourism related marina construction across the Caribbean.

Where does Barbados sit in all of this excitement about potentially the richest niche of high-end tourism? - in a word not good. Yes, we have Port St. Charles, a successful luxury residential marina on the north west coast which is being copied elsewhere in the region like at the new The Landings residential marina project next door to the Rodney Bay Marina in St. Lucia. But lacking natural harbours and vacant lands for major marina development and being about a hundred miles outside the arc of the island chain has means that Barbados is not exactly at the tip of the tongue of many yachtsmen plying the Caribbean. So, the question is whether our not we are going to allow these potential negatives to keep us from reaping the fruits of the explosion in tourism yachting in the Caribbean.

This brings up the question of the Pierhead Project which is suppose to have a 180-slip marina component that has been languishing for many years. As is usual in Barbados for big undertakings of this kind the main problem seems to be money, i.e., a lack of it. The last real excitement about this project was when Le Meridien got onboard with the hotel component; but whatever funds they may or may not have been bringing to the table probably dried up when they themselves were gobbled up by Starwood Hotels which is currently in a mad rush getting out of the property ownership business and into the "management-only" business. Therefore, if anything big is to happen at the Pierhead it is going to call for bold leadership and foresight.

If we had let a little thing like lacking a natural harbour stop us from constructing a deep water port back in the late 1950s, we would still be tendering sugar in bags to ships moored in Carlisle Bay today, not to mention still lacking the world-class cruise tourism terminal the Port of Bridgetown is today. If we had let a little thing like being outside the arc of the island chain stop the construction of Seawell Airport back in the 1950s, we would not have the regional hub the Grantley Adams International is today, not to mention the island with one of the most successful tourism sectors in the entire Caribbean. The Pierhead project needs to be re-emphasized, retooled and repositoned as our next major leap forward in tourism. We are already 20 years behind St. Lucia which 16 years ago stole from us the lucrative ARC race (by the way - "the largest transocean sailing event in the world") and with the current lack of boldness and leadership in marina development on the island we may still miss the boat entirely.

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Can Rosewood Wait?

Word is that the earliest the temporary prison will be vacating the site on which this resort is to be built will be June of next year, 2007. The Nation reported that - "THE NEW PRISON under construction at Dodds, St Philip, will not be ready ahead of Cricket World Cup 2007 as originally planned by contractors and Government. Consequently, prisoners will have to remain in the less-than-ideal temporary prison at Harrison Point, St Lucy, where larger-than-normal cells accommodate dozens in a dormitory-like setting until at least June 2007." The upshot of this development is that it pushes back the start of construction on this project. Of course, that's if the funding for it is already in place; and that's a big "if." It is doubtful whether in the very competitive market to attract and keep high-end luxury brands in a hurry to expand that one like Rosewood can sit around and wait on small island-states to get their act together. Rosewood recently pulled out of a project in St. Lucia in a much more desirable location than Harrison's for similar reasons.

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Sam Lord's Project Outline

Sam Lord's Castle

Sam Lord's, St. Philip (72 acres)

Hotel - 350 rooms

Condos - 200

Developers - CLICO

Date - 2009

Price Tag - US $125 Million

Status - Unknown



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Pierhead Project Outline

Pierhead
Pierhead, Bridgetown
Hotel - Le Meridien (Starwood) 200 rooms
Apartments - 200
Marina - 180 slips
Museum
Shopping Plaza
Parking Garage
Developers - Pierhead Project Investors Inc
Date - 2010
Price Tag - Unknown
Status - Unknown

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Merricks Project Outline

Merricks Hotel, Spa & Residence

Palmetto Bay, St. Philip (70 acres)

Hotel - 5-star

Villas - 100

Condos - 600

Spa

Developers -

Date - 2008

Price Tag - US $

Status - Pre-construction sales



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The Lakes Project Outline

The Lakes
Mount Brevitor, St. Peter (180 acres)
Villas - 500
Developers -
Date - 2009
Price Tag - US $150 Million
Status - Under construction


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Harrisons Point Project Outline

Harrisons Point
Harrisons Point, St. Lucy (82 acres)
Hotel - Rosewood 200 rooms
Villas - 75
Condos - 160
Townhouses - 100
Developers - Harrison Resort (Barbados) Limited
Date - 2009
Price Tag - US $100 Million
Status - Pending move of temporary prison occupying site.

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Cove Bay Project Outline

Cove Bay Villas
Cove Bay, St. Lucy (70 acres)
Villas - 100
Wellness Facility (26 acres)
Date - Unknown
Price Tag - Unknown
Status - Seeking investors

www.mullinsbay.com

Culpepper Project Outline

Culpepper Club/Whitehaven

Bushy Park, St. Philip (348 acres)

Hotel - Culpepper Hyatt Regency 225 rooms

Villas - 394

Townhouses - 152

Golf Course - 18-hole (Jack Nicklaus)

Spa

Developers - St Philip Land Limited

Date - 2013

Price Tag - US $400 Million

Status - Unknown



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